Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to (a) all users of the above Web site; (b) consumers who provide us with information in connection with their subscriptions to or use of print publications affiliated with the above Web site. The Policy describes our collection and use of users’ personal information (for example, information that identifies a specific person, such as full name, street address, telephone number, e-mail address, or credit card number) where that information is not otherwise made publicly available on our Web site and associated online services. It also describes, generally, our practices for handling non-personal information collected from you in the aggregate (for example, information on interests, demographics and site usage), or from a third party to the extent such information is associated with a particular device, user or user account.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU AND HOW WE USE IT.

We collect information as part of operating our Web site and services. We respect the privacy of Web visitors, and we do not sell personally identifiable information about the users of our services, including the e-mail addresses, names, street addresses, phone numbers or interest’s information. We may share, however, information with providers, vendors, or business partners involved in the operating of our Web site and/or services.

Personal information.

Home phone numbers. We may ask for your home phone number to help us determine whether you are a print subscriber. This information is valuable to us and also will allow us to extend future Web benefits to users of our Web site who are also print subscribers. We do not use your phone number to telemarket. If you are a print subscriber, however, you may already have received or will receive periodic phone calls asking whether you are satisfied with the quality of your home-delivery service.

E-mail addresses. If you provide your e-mail address to us as part of any interaction with our Web site, you will periodically receive promotional e-mail messages about services offered by our Web site, and third-party marketers on the Web. These promotions will be tailored to the interest categories you have indicated and are controlled by us. Your identity will not be revealed to an unaffiliated third-party marketer unless you respond directly to the marketer’s offer and provide your information. If you have a print or online subscription with us, we may also send you periodic reminders about your subscriptions.

1. Click the opt-out link at the bottom of any email you receive from Columbus Alive

2. Click the button that says “Confirm opt-out now”

Your opt-out will be permanent, even if you choose to sign-up again at any other time. If your opt-out was accidental and you wish to get back on our newsletter email list, or if you have any additional concerns or questions, please email: Info@ColumbusAlivemail.com

Information you share when you participate in Web-site activities such as contests and reader or viewer feedback. If you wish to engage in these activities, we will ask you to register and provide your personal information. Unless you opt in during registration to receive e-mailings from us or consent to share your personal information with others, we will not use your information for any other activity.

Information you share for user-generated content and public activities. We may offer you opportunities to engage in public activities. “Public activities” are any actions you take online that are designed to be visible to other users, including comments, recommendations, reviews, ratings or any other items that you submit. Any information you disclose in your public activities, along with your screen name or ID, or any image or photo, becomes public and may be used by us for online and offline promotional or commercial uses in any and all media. If you choose to engage in public activities, you should be aware that any personal information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these areas, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums, and we have no responsibility to publish, take down, remove or edit any of your public activities or any of your submissions that are a result of your public activities.

When you share or recommend (with or without adding your own comments) any of our content on your Facebook profile, that action is governed by the Facebook Privacy Policy. We do not track or store a record of those comments or actions.

If you have registered for an account with our Web site, we will track and aggregate your public activities. By choosing to participate in public activities, you are electing to share and display such public activities via our Web site. Also, public activities may be included in RSS feeds, APIs and made available to other Web sites via other formats. As a result, your public activities may appear on other Web sites, blogs, or feeds. Keep in mind that we are not responsible for any personal information you choose to make public via your public activities, and you agree that such sharing will be deemed to have been done by you, not the above Web site.

Letters to the Editor. Letters to the Editor to any affiliated print publication are presumed to be intended for publication. Identifying information provided with the letter is used only for verification of the letter’s authenticity. Letter authors’ real names, cities of residence and title (where applicable) are published along with the letter. Due to the volume of letters received, we cannot guarantee either publication or a personal response to any given letter.

E-mail to our staff members and departments: If you choose to interact with any of our staff members or departments, our staff members have broad discretion as to the handling of mail sent to their individual accounts. The company reserves the right to track or record such correspondence when circumstances warrant. Electronic mail sent to departments within our companies is handled at the department's discretion. We do not have a policy of sharing contents of e-mail with any other entities. However, we reserve the right to disclose such correspondence as necessary to protect the companies’ legal interests.

Advertising submissions. Personal information provided with online classified advertising submissions is used only for verification and billing purposes.

Credit-card purchasing. If you make a credit-card purchase from our Web site that offers that option, we are committed to making your credit-card purchase as secure as possible, and to ensuring your privacy. Before you make a purchase from our Web site, please read the following:

● The e-mail address and the password you choose will become your “identifier” – we will use it to process and fulfill your order and to welcome you back to the site for future purchases. If you choose to receive future promotional notices from our Web site that you use, we will save your e-mail address for that purpose. If you choose not to receive future e-mail notices, we will not use your information for anything other than to process your order. Your telephone number is needed in case we are unable to notify you by e-mail of any questions about your order.

● Personal information you provide us is solely the property of the Web site from which you make a purchase and is stored on a separate, secured server that is accessible only to authorized personnel. We do not track individual behavior of our customers while they are making credit-card purchases. We will record only aggregate numbers of products purchased and general traffic patterns on the site; that information will be used only to help us continue to improve. It will not be shared with any other parties.

● Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology is used to encrypt and protect your credit-card account information, and transactions are carried out on a secure server (please be sure that your own Web browser, such as Netscape or Explorer, is able to handle secure transactions). Products are billed to your account when they are shipped or electronically delivered.

● By ordering from our Web site, you consent to terms of this Privacy Policy. If you have concerns about this policy, please e-mail [NOTE: NEED TO INSERT AN EMAIL ADDRESS]

Non-personal information.

Advertising network information. Google is an ad network partner that displays ads on our Web site. To improve your ad experience on our Web site and elsewhere on the Internet, we may send non-personal information to Google based on your browser’s activities, such as type of pages viewed and categories of interests, so that the advertising you see is relevant to you. Google also may use information regarding its own users to select which ads to display. Click here (link to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/) to learn more about Google’s ad practices, including how to opt out of using anonymous information to select which ads to show you. BlueKai is a data partner that helps our companies target relevant ads to our Web site users. BlueKai collects non-personally identifiable information regarding offline collected attributes and digital usage patterns of users of mobile devices and computers. The information is combined together with other non-personally identifiable information that is obtained from third parties in order to influence which types of marketing messages and other content are displayed to users as “Preference Data.” BlueKai uses non-personally identifiable means, including “cookies,” “pixel tags,” and in some instances, statistical ID’s, to collect and store Preference Data. Click here (link to: http://bluekai.com/privacypolicy.php) to learn more about BlueKai’s data collection practices.

Information on Web traffic. When visitors come to our Web site, we use standard Web server log files to collect and aggregate information indicating, among other things, which pages were visited, the order in which they were visited, and which hyperlinks were “clicked.” Collecting such information involves the logging of IP addresses, and operating system and browser software used by each visitor to the Web site.

This non-personally identifiable information is used only in the aggregate – to identify the most popular areas of our Web site, or determine the effectiveness of our promotional activities, for example. We may disclose some of this aggregated, non-personally identifiable information to advertisers to inform them of the number of people who have seen and/or clicked through their advertisements. Your usage on our site is not revealed to third parties.

Cookies. For the same purposes, we use “cookies” – small text files placed on your computer’s hard drive – to help us determine the type of content and sites to which you link, the length of time you spend at any particular area of the Web site, and your usage of our services offered via the Web site. Cookies also tell us which advertising you have seen on the Web site. At certain times, we may use outside advertising companies to display advertisements on the Web site that may contain cookies (“banner ads”). These banner ads collect information stored by the advertising company, and we do not have access to this information.

Essentially, cookies are your identification cards for our computers, or servers, that placed them there. Cookies are read only by the server that placed them, and are unable to execute any code or virus. Cookies allow us to serve you better and more efficiently, and to personalize your experience at the Web site. Nevertheless, you are able to control how and whether cookies will be accepted by your Web browser. For more information on how to do so, please refer to the documentation accompanying your browser.

LINKS TO AND CO-BRANDING WITH OTHER SITES.

As a courtesy to our users, some of our Web site may contain links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of any other site that collects personally identifiable information.

SPECIAL NOTE ON CHILDREN’S PRIVACY.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. We feel strongly about protecting the privacy of children. We encourage children to involve their parents in any interactive activity they participate in online. Our Web site is a general-audience Web site, and some of our Web site may contain content that is directed to children under 13. Areas of our Web site that contain content directed to children under 13 are available to all users without registration. While no personal identifying information is collected from the unregistered users of these areas of our Web site, aggregated general information is collected from unregistered users of these areas and is used only for aggregate analysis.

Otherwise, our Web site requires users to register and give us personally identifiable information – name, address, age, and e-mail address – in order to gain access to the site. In compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, our Web site will not knowingly allow persons under the age of 13 to register as users. If our Web site operators later learn that any registered user is under the age of 13, we will take appropriate steps to remove the user information from our databases and we will restrict the user from future access to our Web site.